Rainy days and mosquitoes

April showers bring May flowers, so the saying goes. But it’s not the case here in Winnipeg. It had been very rainy in May. Here we are in June and the weather condition hasn’t improved much.

Ryan and I were on our way to his basketball game one Saturday in May when he said, “What is that smell?” He was referring to that distinct smell coming from the ground just before it started to rain. “Maalimuom” as we say it in Tagalog. I told him what it was. That smell brought me back home. The familiar smell that I grew up with is so foreign to my son. I told him that kids in the Philippines sometimes “take a bath” in the rain. “Naked?” he asked. “No, with their clothes on,” I replied.

If I remember it right, rainy season back home begins just around the time school starts. Simula na ng bagyo.

In the Philippines, school has re-opened, so I gathered. Here in Canada, classes will be done by the end of June. We’re almost there, but not quite. And I’m getting a hard time making the kids go to bed at 9:00 p.m. since the sun is still up until around 9:30 p.m. I mean the sun is up somewhere behind the clouds.

And yes, it’s inevitable, the skeeters are back. I dread the re-appearance of mosquitoes in the summer, although I was used to having them around all year in the Philippines. Pa’no ba naman, the mosquitoes here are a lot bigger than the ones back home. I’ve already seen quite a few bites on Ryland’s arms and neck. He used to be allergic to mosquito bites when he was younger and I remember when Benadryl was a resident of our medicine cabinet.


This was a nasty case of a mosquito bite when Ryland was 2.

And you know how we use Vicks Vaporub on mosquito bites? Not heard of here. They only use Vicks on the chest for congestion. My kids wouldn’t believe me that we can apply it to mosquito bites until they saw it worked.